This fun Australia Day tribute to one Australia’s most beautiful icons – the Great Barrier Reef, will keep the kids busy researching, making and playing for ages!

Step 1 : Paint the main scene
Gather everything you will need & begin by painting your egg cartons .We used white and blue paint on one to represent water, and mixed blue, yellow, white and metallic green paint on the other for the reef. Allow to dry.
Step 2: Decorate your sea floor
Once dry, use 3D Paint to decorate your scene and make it more interesting. While you’ve got the 3D paint out, cut out some shapes from craft foam and decorate for the Plate Coral.
Step 3: Make reef coral, plants & creatures
Now for the really fun part! We cut out different shapes of pipecleaners for Anenome Coral and Soft Coral.
Step 4: Complete your Coral Reef
When dry, glue your Coral Plates to your reef. Ask an adult for some help to make holes in the reef and water egg cartons using skewers, and attach your pipe cleaner corals to the reef too. Make sure to leave some free holes for your Reef creatures!
Step 5: Decorate your creatures!
Print and colour in the creatures on our downloadable activity sheet below, and cut them out. If you’re feeling very arty you could even draw some of your own! Fold them along the top line in half. Ask an adult to help you cut some skewers to various sizes, and glue to the top of skewers of craft sticks.